By Nate Wolf
Symbotic stock plummeted on Thursday after the warehouse robotics company announced a public offering of 10 million shares of common stock.
Shares sank 15% to $62.38 because the sale will dilute the holdings of current investors.
Symbotic, which is a key strategic partner of Walmart, is offering 6.5 million shares in a primary offering and SVF Sponsor III, an affiliate of SoftBank Group, is selling 3.5 million shares, Symbotic said in a statement dated Wednesday afternoon.
The offering's underwriters -- Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are the lead bookrunners -- can expect an option from Symbotic to purchase up to 1.5 million additional shares.
Symbotic plans to use the net proceeds for general corporate purposes. SVF Sponsor will receive all the net proceeds from its sale.
The stock has had a roller-coaster year. Shares have climbed more than 160% -- but not without big swings up and down.
Symbotic jumped 57% Nov. 25 and 26 after the company beat revenue estimates for its fiscal fourth quarter and announced medical-supply distributor Medline as a new customer.
The stock then dropped 22% on Tuesday on the back of some mixed research notes from Wall Street analysts, including at least one Sell rating.
Even after a bounce back on Wednesday, the stock was on pace Thursday for its worst three-day loss since Dec. 2, 2024, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Because of the wild ride, it isn't a surprise that Symbotic has a beta -- a common measure of volatility -- of 4.1 over the past 90 days -- or about four times more volatile than the broader market. That's about the same as Robinhood Markets for the same period.
Symbotic shares weren't always this jumpy. Over the past five years, the stock's beta is 1.35, according to FactSet. But big share growth comes with sharp day-to-day moves.
The business is perhaps reaching a critical stage in its development that has some investors buying up the stock.
Symbotic's relationship with Walmart goes back nearly a decade. Earlier this year, company acquired Walmart's advance systems and robotics business, and the retailer agreed to fund the development of new automation systems.
But other major customer wins have been slow coming, analysts at UBS noted in September, before the Medline announcement.
The combination of Symbotic's soaring valuation and worries over customer concentration may be keeping investors on their toes.
Write to Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 04, 2025 13:59 ET (18:59 GMT)
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